POUGHKEEPSIE – City Administrator
Milo Bunyi on Monday said the reason the city sent separate bills for
garbage pickup to thousands of Poughkeepsie residents is because their
banks would not take the money out of their escrow accounts.
The common council in late 2013 voted to include the sanitation fee in
the property tax bill and they went out earlier this year as planned.
But, Bunyi said of the 3,500 residents who have escrow accounts with banks,
their financial institutions said they would not pay the garbage fee from
their accounts.
Therefore, Bunyi’s office mailed out separate sanitation fee bills
to those residents.
City Alderman Joseph Rich believed the city administration was not following
its directive to mail tax bills with the garbage fee, but Bunyi said that
is not the case, the initial bills send earlier this year did include
property tax and garbage fee charges.
